The Shape of Things to Come

I know I’ve cried wolf before, but it appears the engy update is finally drawing near. In the recent blog Valve has published another comic, dealing once more with the (fictional) history of TeamFortress and the conflict between the Mann-brothers spanning many decades, this time shedding light who three generations of engineers have been involved with it. More backstory is revealed [1], we see glimpses of Saxton Hale and the Administrator and we are introduced to something golden. Except, it’s not gold, it’s a new element called Australium – hey, should I have said SPOILER ALERT first? - which I suspect we will encounter quite soon more closely.

I say this because another golden object made an quite inconspicuous appearance. A recent update contained code and model of a golden wrench. For the most part it does the same its brother of lower origin does: You can upgrade buildings and you can whack people. Only, after some fatal whacking those people turn to golden statues, very Midas-like. But is it gold the people are turned into? Or could it be Australium?

Will the engy update introduce a new generation of weapons based on the extraordinary properties of Australium?

And will the engy be capable of harvesting the Australium he is creating with all his whacking? Not that any of this seems very productive in the first place. After all, for an engy to go after enemy players with his wrench is not the most prospecting enterprise to begin with. Ah, it’s all so confusing.

So I’m waiting with anticipation what the next week will (hopefully) bring.

Footnotes

[1] Hey, Valve apparently is putting together some coherent storyline ... well as far coherent as a story can be about two teams located in bases just a stone throw apart fighting each other to the death

Discussion

Seems to me like this hints that Valve doesn’t (only?) want to make the engi stronger in direct combat, but they want to reward him more for direct combat (say... australium is required for lvl5 sentries and only a combat engi can "produce" it).